Covid-19: What should employers consider as they return to work?
The
Return to Work Safely Protocol issued by the Irish government is great but it’s just in-keeping with its basic obligations to protect, provide and invest in its citizens. But as we take stock of it, it’s important that we as employers also uphold our basic obligations to protect, provide and invest in our employees.
These three basic obligations as employers don’t just begin and end in
five simple phases, but it does give us some time to understand new protocols, plan our own phased measures and consider our own return to work policies.
The difference between duty and obligation
Our obligations to protect, provide and invest in our workforce are guidelines, not rules. They form the basis of our
employer brand strategy which is vital to the future sustainability of our businesses. However, they are not the law. As employers prepare to reopen their workplaces, several legal issues are in play. Under the
safety, health and welfare act 2005, employers have a legal:
- Duty to protect the health, as well as safety, of their employees;
- Duty to protect others who may be exposed to health risks as a result of the employer's activities, including members of the public, service users and contractors; and
- Duty to manage safety risks from workplaces under the employer's control.
With all of this in mind...
How will work…work?
Similar to the coronavirus itself, how ‘work will work’ is still very uncertain. We can, however, take some learnings from China over the past month in addition to World Health Organisation data. Using this, Cushman & Wakefield developed a new concept called
"The Six Feet Office". Of course, getting people back into the office is in Cushman & Wakefield’s financial interest but it is an example of how employers can think about the new normal and how we must adjust.
Yes, we need to get on with life and yes, we can take ideas from other businesses and countries, but can we rely on them to uphold our legal duties to protect our staff? Since the transmission of the coronavirus generally occurs via respiratory means from close personal contact with others, the implementation of measures such as the
six feet office concept shows a duty to
manage the risks of contagion but will they actually
protect our workforce from the disease?
Before deciding to return to the office and applying learnings from China or designs from other businesses, it’s important to recognise the differences with our infrastructure and culture here in Ireland.
Cultural and infrastructural differences
"We're all in this together" is something we've been experiencing a lot recently and it's wonderful to see it in action. The Irish people are incredibly resilient but as we issue new safety measures and revised health policies in order to return to work, it’s important to acknowledge that unlike China, for instance, it will take further fundamental cultural and infrastructural shifts in order for new policies to work effectively in Ireland. According to the 2013 Nobel prize winning scientist, Professor Michael Levitt:
The countries that control the epidemics very well are generally countries in the East - China, Vietnam, Japan, South Korea, Taiwan and Singapore - where there is a very strong sense of common good. You don’t do something because it’s good for you - you do it because it is good for everyone”.
These countries have different cultural characteristics and infrastructure that we don’t have in Ireland. For instance:
- It’s normal to wear a face mask in public in these countries;
- They don’t pay with cash or card, they pay using WeChat;
- They don’t shake hands when greeting one another;
- They have already been traumatised by Sars so it’s common that they automatically measure your temperature when entering buildings;
- Office buildings have been installing high-end air filtration systems for several years now, and China even introduced its own indoor air certification standard, in response to rising pollution;
- It’s normal to take temperature check and they have invested heavily in technology to do so at office entrances automatically; and
- Many offices have also been running in rotational shifts for years in order to keep the number of people in an office at once to a minimum.
A new form of stress and anxiety to manage
At RECRUITERS, We are fortunate to have our resources secure in the cloud and technology at hand to ensure that we can all work remotely from home. At a management level, we’ve already begun talking about what returning to work might look like.
For many, going back to the office will actually be more stressful than it was to work from home all those weeks ago. Why? Because of the cultural and infrastructural shifts mentioned above, the risk of “
reverse cultural shock”, the fact that more people now prefer working from home and are more productive doing so, and because we are all much more germ conscious than ever before which makes sitting on a bus or the thought of eating in a canteen difficult for those that have real concerns about the risk of infection.
And so, yes new office designs and return-to-work health & safety standards are brilliant (and crucial) for driving better behaviours, but as employers we also need to consider the cultural, infrastructural and mental challenges that the virus poses before we ask our employees to return to work and assume productivity will be what it used to be.
Employer guidance towards policy & protocol
Yesterday, as members of Ireland’s National Recruitment Federation (NRF), RECRUITERS welcomed their “
Return to Work Safely Protocol” following the publication by the Department of Business, Enterprise and Innovation last weekend. We wanted to share
their update with you here as we hope it also helps guide your policies and protocols.
The NRF document is a summary of the key measures set out in the Governments protocol and includes the following considerations:
- Appointing a least one ‘worker representative’ to lead your Covid-19 response;
- Provide information, guidance and training;
- Review all workplace practices to ensure compliance; and
- Decide & implement physical changes.
Final thoughts
As a recruitment consultancy, it’s in our interest to get people back into the office. As employers, it’s in all of our best interests to reopen our workplaces. And as human beings, it’s in all of our best interests to get on with life. However, there are several legal, cultural, infrastructural and mental issues that relate specifically to Ireland at play.
Therefore, we should begin devising COVID-19 return-to-work policies per Government guidance and we should begin driving changes towards behaviour that continue to flatten the curve. However, we should be refrained from rushing back to our previous working environments until we, as employers, feel that we can truly meet our obligations to protect, provide and invest in our employees’ health, wellbeing and productivity.
In our new ‘normal’ we constantly need to be careful about what we wish for because of the uncertainty that still exists. At RECRUITERS, we won't be rushing to return to the office until we know we can do it in a way that fully protects our colleagues, clients and job seekers. We will continue to conduct our
hiring solutions remotely through video, help our client's onboard new staff remotely and carry out our company mission to put consulting back into recruitment to ensure our clients
achieve their business objectives as Ireland's most trusted recruitment partner.
Andrew is the Marketing Manager at RECRUITERS.
